PRONUNCIATIONS OF GREEK

It does not appear to be generally known what factors and circumstances led to the so-called “scientific” pronunciation of Greek. All started with a practical joke played on Erasmus by the Swiss scholar Loritus of Glarus. Later, however, Erasmus found out the trick played on him, so he desisted from using the pronunciation he had proposed, but his error finally succeeded in ousting the Greek pronunciation of Greek. This article exposes the evolution of the pronunciation of Greek since the origins of the language.

1. The Problem

On being taught how to pronounce Greek words, the student of New Testament Greek is told that he is learning to pronounce the language not in the Modern Greek fashion, which is a late development, but in the way in which ancient Greeks used to pronounce it. A dichotomy is thus made between ancient and modern pronunciation of Greek, and the student is often given the impression that his pronunciation of Greek would be identical or almost identical with the way the great objects of his study — St. Paul, St. Luke, St. John, etc. — pronounced it, and that it would be identical or very similar to the way the ancient Greeks, like Socrates, Plato, and Aristotle sounded it in 5th and 4th century BC Athens. This pronunciation is presented as the scientific pronunciation of Greek in contradistinction to the Modern Greek pronunciation, which is considered to be a departure from it.

An inevitable consequence of the above situation has been widespread, though inaccurate with regard to the pronunciation of ancient and modern Greek, as well as the relation of modern Greek to the Greek of the New Testament. This may be conveniently illustrated by quoting three scholars: One scholar thought that what he called the Modern Greek pronunciation was the pronunciation that the Greeks applied to the Dhimotiki 1. The truth is that pronunciation is related to the letters, not to the form of words or the syntax. Another teacher of Greek thought that the Greeks had changed the pronunciation of certain letters, as for example, they pronounced “p” as “f” and cited as instance the word epta, (= “seven”), which he thought Modern Greeks pronounced as efta2. As a matter of fact, in modern Greek the word for “seven” occurs in two forms: as επτα (epta) and as εφτα (efta), and each of them is pronounced according to its particular spelling. Finally, a third scholar thought that the relation of modern Greek to the Greek of the New Testament was approximately that of Swedish or Norwegian to the Runic. The fact is that there is no truth in this statement.

It does not appear to be generally known what factors and circumstances led to this so-called “scientific” pronunciation of Greek. Those scholars who have worked with the very complex and technical evidence bearing on Greek pronunciation are extremely few. The subject demands not only a thorough knowledge of Greek (preferably in all its periods); the acquaintance with the inscriptions and the papyri, which bear witness to the spelling in ancient times; a good grasp of the historical developments in ancient times with regard to the change of alphabet (the adoption of the Phoenician alphabet) and its consequent accommodations; as well as with the spelling ratification under Eucleides (403-402 B.C.). However, it is not least also a mastery of the Greek rules regarding phonology (the study of the evolution of sounds) and even phonopathy (the pathology of sounds under various grammatical conditions for reasons of euphony, avoidance of hiatus, etc.).

2. The Error of Erasmus

From the introduction of Greek learning to the West in the 13th – 14th century and until the beginning of the 16th century, Greek was universally pronounced in the manner in which Greeks pronounce it today. In 1528 the Humanist scholar Desiderius Erasmus of Rotterdam, who for a time happened to live in Leuven, in the Low Countries, composed a Dialogue in Latin between a bear and a lion3, in which he set forth a novel way of pronouncing Greek, which has since come to be called the Erasmian pronunciation of Greek, or Etacism, and to be regarded by its proponents as the scientific pronunciation of Greek. The incentive to write this book came from a practical joke that was played on Erasmus by the Swiss scholar Henricus (Loritus of Glarus, hence
Glareanus).

Glareanus, who had arrived from Paris, met Erasmus who, being inordinately fond of novelties and credulous, was eager to learn what was latest in the City of Lights; he told him that certain Greek scholars had arrived in Paris who pronounced Greek in a different fashion than the one received in Europe, and proceeded to give him an account of the new pronunciation. There was a verisimilitude in the new suggestions inasmuch as the Greeks gave to several letters the sound of ‘i’. Moreover, Latin transliterated, e.g. the h of the second syllable of εκκλησια with e (i.e. ecclesia ) rather than with i (i.e. ekklisia.), as the h is pronounced by the Greeks 4. In writing this dialogue Erasmus was motivated by an obvious interest in factual truth, and he initiated his novel pronunciation in the belief that it was actually used by Greeks. Not wishing to be anticipated, he immediately composed his Dialogus. Later, however, he found out the trick played on him, so he desisted from using the pronunciation he had concocted, abiding by the received pronunciation (and enjoined his closest friends to do the same), as did also his opponent Johannes Reuchlin and the latter’s nephew Philip Melanchthon as well as Martin Luther. However, the “news” spread like wild fire, and after centuries of struggle with the traditional pronunciation, Erasmus’s error finally succeeded in ousting the Greek pronunciation of Greek and in establishing itself in all countries outside Greece (apart from a few exceptions)5.

This Erasmian pronunciation claims to represent a united system of pronunciation, but this is so only theoretically; in actual practice Greek is pronounced in conformity to German, English, French and so on, according to the mother tongue of the speaker6 (hence in international New Testament conferences there is often a Babel-like experience when trying to figure out which Greek word the speaker was trying to pronounce) — although some Testament scholars still like to assure that their pronunciation of Greek is identical with that of Socrates and Plato. This state of affairs, naturally, robs the Erasmian pronunciation of the right to being called scientific, hence the so-called scientific pronunciation of Greek is nothing but a chaotic democracy of un-Greek pronunciations of Greek, each conceived according to what is deemed natural in the speaker’s own tongue.

3. Historical Circumstances

One may wonder how was the practical joke on Erasmus possible? Why could not the proponents of the new pronunciation check this novelty with the Greeks? Why did the Greeks not protest? What is the explanation for the rise and success of this novelty in pronouncing Greek?

An historical circumstance has not been taken into account: Following its move of its capital from Rome to Constantinople under Constantine, the Roman Empire of New Testament times gradually was transformed into a new Greek Empire, the Byzantine Empire. This Byzantine Empire had a life span of some 1100 years till the 29th of May 1453, when Constantinople was finally taken by the Turks. Although many Greek scholars, at the advance of the Moslems, took their libraries and fled to Italy helping initiate there the Renaissance7, there was now no longer a Greek State which could watch over the fate of the Greek language and its pronunciation. The Greeks were engaged in a life-and-death struggle with the Turks, a struggle that went on for more than 200 years after the fall of Constantinople.
Naturally, then, not only did they lack the means of resisting the new pronunciation, but they were, for the most part, unaware of what was going on in central Europe. The Western Europeans having preached their funeral sermon over Greece, felt now free to dispose of her legacy as seemed fit to them.

The advent of the Greeks in Italy marked the beginning of the new “Western School” of classical studies, which, following the death of its founders, passed on into non-Greek hands. The (historical) grammarian A. Jannaris8 puts the matter pertinently when he says: “The first act of this school, still in its infancy, was to do away with the traditional pronunciation — which reflects perhaps the least changed part of the language — and then to declare Greek a dead tongue”.

This, in brief, is the historical background which made possible the rise and establishment of the Erasmian pronunciation9. Having established it, its advocates proceeded to produce “scientific proofs” for its correctness.

One of its foremost proponents was Friedrich Blass, whose arguments (set forth in a writing of 41 pages, then increased to 109 and again to 140 pages) have often been refuted10. Many scholars, English, Germans, Americans, and Greeks, wrote against the Erasmian pronunciation, and the fight over the pronunciation of Greek — at its hottest in the nineteenth century11 — ended in a stalemate: the Greeks continued to pronounce Greek in the Greek way, while the other camp considered that they had discovered the “authentic” pronunciation of classical antiquity. Curiously enough and self-contradictorily they went on pronouncing Homer, Plato, the New Testament as well as the Church Fathers — all in the same way!

4. The Historical Pronunciation of Greek

While we are now aware that the Erasmian pronunciation does not reflect the ancient Greek pronunciation, it surely helps us to spell Greek correctly. Indeed, the awareness that the Erasmian pronunciation of Greek is inaccurate is now fairly widespread, and a welcome openness is noted in international scholarship.

5. Classical Greek Pronunciation

During its four thousand year long history Greek has not been pronounced uniformly. Written records take us back three and one half millennia. There is no way of establishing how it was pronounced in the second millennium and in the first part of the first millennium B.C. The significant material comes to us in the form of inscriptions from the 7th century B.C. on and papyri a few centuries later. In particular, the material that evinces not the official historical spelling, often found in public inscriptions, but the popular, often uneducated people’s spelling, that tried to reproduce the sounds of the spoken language, is the safest guide to the pronunciation of Greek in antiquity. Careful study of the evidence leads to the following results:

The letters α, ε, ι, κ, λ, μ, ν, ξ, χ, ο, π, ρ, σ, τ, φ, ψ__are not in dispute. They are pronounced by Greeks and Erasmians alike or practically alike. The disputed letters are the consonants β, γ, δ, ζ, θ, the vowels η, υ, ω, the diphthongs, as well as aspiration and accents. The pronunciation of the disputed letters is as follows (the Greek pronunciation is indicated only approximately; as in all other languages the sound quality can be learned only from native speakers):

Letters Greek pronunciation Erasmian pronunciation

β = v = b
γ = gh (as Eng. “yet” with and without the i-sound
heard between the y and the e.) = g
δ = dh (as th in Eng. “then”) = d
ζ = z (as z in Eng. “zebra”) = dz or ts
θ = th (as th in Eng. “thin”) = t

η = i = e (as in Germ. or Swed. ä)
υ = i = u or y
ω = o (as in Eng. “for”) = o (long)
αι = e (as in Germ. or Swed. ä) = ai (as two sounds)
ει = i = ei (as two sounds)
οι = i = oi (as two sounds)
υι = i = ui or yi (as two sounds)
αυ = av (before vowel or b, g, d, z l, m, n, r)
or af (before all other consonants) = au (a two sounds)
ευ = ev or ef (as above) = e u (as two sounds)
ηυ = iv or if (as above) = eu (long) (Swed. äu) (as two sounds)
É Ñ = no aspiration = aspiration (= h)
/ \ ∼ = accents heeded = accents not heeded

NOTES:

1 N.B. Modern Greek has another form, the Katharevousa, or the “literary” (and till 1975 official) modern Greek, which has its roots in the 2nd c. A.D. revival of classicism (Phrynichus, Moeris), though most modern literature is written in the Dhimotiki.

2 The very same mistake along with a mispronunciation of two other words ascribed to Greeks occurs in no less a scholar than W. F. Howard, A Grammar of New Testament Greek. Accidence and Word-Formation (Edinburgh: T & T Clark, 1928, latest impression 1979) 45: “φθα&νω ισ ιν ΜΓρ φτ〈νο, αι0σθα&νομαι ισ εστ〈νομε … ε9πτα& = εφτ〈”, and other inaccuracies about modern Greek. Such inexactitudes about Modern Greek abound in F. Blass, Über die Aussprache des Griechischen (Berlin: Weidmannsche Buchhandlung, 1st ed. 1870, 2nd ed. 1882, and 3rd ed. 1888) e.g. 2nd ed. 83 (= 3rd ed. 97), 3rd ed. 103, while his non-acquaintance with modern Greek phonology is seen throughout his book (cf. e.g. the 3rd ed. 132ff.). Blass introduced, or at least contributed to, the inaccurate picture about modern Greek rife in the scholarly community ever since.

3 De recta Latini Graecique sermonis pronunciatione dialogus (Basiliae: Frobenius 1528).

4 Speculations along similar lines had been made earlier by the Spaniard Antonio of Lebrixa, the Venice printer Aldus Manutius, and the Italian Girolamo (Hieronymus) Aleander.

5 The story of the fraud (fraude) to which Erasmus fell victim is related in an account dated 27 October 1569, and cited in one of the fervent supporters of Erasmianism, in Gerardi Ioannis Vossii, Aristarchus, sive de arte Grammatica libri septem etc., (Amstelædami: I. Blaev 1635, Editio secunda 1662) 106f. My thanks are hereby due to de heer Martin Engels, Conservator of the Provinciale Bibliotheek van Friesland at Leeuwarden, Netherlands, who kindly send me photocopies of the relevant pages of this book. The text runs as follows: “Ac Erasmus quidem quâ occasione ad scribendum de rectâ pronunciatione fuerit impulsus, paucis cognitum arbitror. Itaque visum hâc de adjicere, quod in schedâ quadam habeo, scriptâ olim manu Henrici Coracopetræi, viri egregiè docti, doctisque perfamiliaris. Ea ita habet: ‘Audivi M. Rutgerum Reschium, professorem Linguæ Græcæ in Collegio Buslidiano apud Lovanienses, meum piæ memoriæ præceptorem, narrantem, se habitâsse in Liliensi pædagogio unà cum Erasmo, plus minus biennio eo superius, se inferius cubiculum obtinente: Henricum autem Glareanum Parisiis Lovanium venisse, atque ab Erasmo in collegium vocatum fuisse ad prandium: quò cùm venisset, quid novi adferret interrogatum, dixisse (quod in itinere commentus erat, quòd sciret Erasmum plus satis rerum novarum studiosum, ac mirè credulum) quosdam in Græciâ natos Lutetiam venisse, viros ad miraculum doctos; qui longè aliam Græci sermonis pronunciationem usurparent, quàm quæ vulgò in hisce partibus recepta esset. Eos nempe sonare pro B vita, BETA: pro H ita, ETA: pro ai æ, AI: pro OI I, OI: & sic in cæteris. Quo audito, Erasmum paulò pòst conscripsisse Dialogum de rectâ Latini Græcique sermonis pronunciatione, ut videretur hujus rei ipse inventor, & obtulisse Petro Alostensi, typographo, imprimendum: qui cùm, fortè aliis occupatus, renueret; aut certè se tam citò excudere, quàm ipse volebat, non posse diceret; misisse libellum Basileam ad Frobenium, a quo mox impressus in lucem prodiit. Verùm Erasmum, cognitâ fraude, nunquam eâ pronunciandi ratione postea usum; nec amicis, quibuscum familiariter vivebat, ut eam observarent, præcepisse. In ejus rei fidem exhibuit M. Rutgerus ipsius Erasmi manuscriptam in gratiam Damiani à Goes Hispani pronunciationis formulam (cujus exemplar adhuc apud me est) in nullo diversam ab eâ, quâ passim docti & indocti in hac linguâ utuntur’. Henricus Coracopetræus Cuccensis. Neomagi. CI I LXIX. pridie Simonis & Iudæ.”

6 This holds true also of the theorists. Cf., for example, the precepts of German theorists (e.g. F. Blass, E. Schwyzer) with those of American and British theorists (e.g. E. H. Sturtevant, W. S. Allen).

7 Of the Greeks, who brought the Greek letters —and hence the historical pronunciation of Greek— to the West both before and after the fall of Constantinople, the following specimen may be given: The Hesychian monk Barlaam the Calabrian (1290-1348) having studied at Constantinople University (founded in A.D. 1045) was one of the first Greeks to spread the knowledge of Greek in Italy. Among his pupils were Petrarch and possibly Boccacio; Leontios Pilatos became professor of Greek at Florence University in 1360. His translation of Homer was used by Petrarch and Boccacio in their educational reform; Manuel Chrysoloras was professor of Greek at Florence University (1396-1399); he lectured also in Pavia, Milan and Rome; Georgios Gemistos Plethon (1360-1452), an observer at the Synod of Ferrara-Florence (1438-1439), lectured during that period to the learned of Italy on Plato, and his superiority to Aristotle, introducing his audience to the differences between the two philosophers. The impression he made was such as to lead the Medici to found the Platonic Academy of Florence (1459); Archbishop Bessarion founded with the help of Pope Nicolas V an Academy for Greek philosophy in Rome; Ioannes Argyropoulos was professor of Greek at Florence 1456-1470, where one of his pupils was Politian; he was invited by Hungarian king Matthias I Corvinus to introduce Greek learning in Hungary; Demetrios Chalkokondylis (1423-1511) taught in Padua, then in Florence for 16 years, as well as in Milan at the invitation of Ludovico Sforza, at whose court at this time resided also Leonardo de Vinci and Bramante; Constantinos Lascaris taught Greek in Milan as well as at the monastery of San Salvatore (1468-1501), where he succeeded another Greek, Andronikos Galesiotis; Andronikos Kallistos taught in Padua, Bologna, Rome, Florence (1471-1475), and presumably in London, where he died; Georgios Hermonymos was the first Greek to teach at the Sorbonne: among his pupils were German Joh. Reuchlin, Venetian Ermolao Barbaro, Dutchman Desiderius Erasmus, and Frenchman Guillaume Budé; Janos Lascaris (1445-1535) became Librarian of Florence, then succeeded D. Chalkokondylis as professor. At his recommendation Pope Leo X founded the Greek Gymnasium of Rome in 1514; Markos Mousouros together with Aldus Manutius published Greek classics in Venice; he taught in Padua: among his pupils were Frenchman Germain de Brie, German Johan Konon, Desiderius Erasmus, French Ambassador Jean de Pin, Hungarian humanist Janus Vertessy, and Galenius from Prague. He was the first to publish the complete works of Plato; together with Battista Egnazzio he founded the famous Marcian Library of Venice; Franciscus Portos (1511-1581) taught in Venice and Geneva; Aimilios Portos (1550-1610), son of the former, taught in Geneva, Lausanne, Heidelberg, and other German cities; Leon Allatios (1586-1669) was Librarian of Vatican and edited many Fathers and other writers, such as Chrysostom and Photius.

8 To whom, among others, I am greatly indebted; see his An Historical Greek Grammar Chiefly of the Attic Dialect As Written and Spoken From Classical Antiquity Down to the Present Time (London: MacMillan & Co., 1897) Preface viii.

9 Their task was made relatively easy on the one hand by the fall of the Byzantine Empire, which could no longer hinder this development, as well as the waning presence of Greek intellectuals in the West, and on the other by their ignorance of the inscriptions, which contradicted their conclusions. As it turned out, the pronunciation of Greek was determined almost solely with the pronunciation of Latin as the arbiter.

10 For example, a Greek scholar wrote a book of 752 pages (Q. Παπαδημητρακο&πουλου, Βα&σανοϕ τω∼ν περι∴ τη=ϕ ε9λληνικη=ϕ προφορα∼ϕ )Ερασμικω∼ν α)ποδει/χεων, )Εν ) Αθη/ναιϕ, 1889) setting forth the evidence available then in vindication of the historical Greek pronunciation and at the same time showing the untenability of the arguments of Blass as well as other advocates of Erasmianism.